Posts Tagged ‘a6 review’

Audi's A6 may look like little more than a styling refresh, but it's actually completely new.

Audi’s latest-generation A6 may look a lot like its predecessor, but its understated exterior hides numerous improvements over its predecessor.

Immediately noticeable are the LED taillights and optional LED headlights. But more importantly, the new A6 is up to 176 pounds lighter than the slightly smaller model it replaces.

Audi accomplished this mostly through the increased use of aluminum, where it is the acknowledge leader.

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The engine is largely carryover. A supercharged 3.0-liter V-6 provides the power. It sings an expressive tune to well past 6,000 rpm.

New in this model is an eight-speed transmission. In normal driving, it shifts almost inperceptably. Shifts are only slightly more pronounced in spirited driving. A sport mode seems to change its characteristics only slightly. The transmission can be manually shifted with paddles behind the steering wheel or with the stick.

While Audi is still struggling to catch up with its key competitors in the U.S. market, it has become very much a top tier player in most of the rest of the world, even outselling the likes of BMW and Mercedes-Benz in key regions, including parts of Europe.

Give a solid chunk of credit for that to the maker’s “executive sedan,” the A6. Not quite the fantasy flagship of the A8, which went through a dramatic redesign for the 2011 model-year, the A6 is nonetheless both a status symbol and, even as it reaches the end of its lifecycle, a styling benchmark both inside and out.

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Which is precisely what Audi hopes to match with the all-new version of the A6, which is scheduled to land in showrooms early in the new year wearing a 2012 model-year designation.

While there may be a few folks who’ll be a wee bit disappointed to see the 2012 Audi A6 take an evolutionary approach to styling, initial reactions are, on the whole, quite positive. It helps that the next-generation sedan picks up some of the more attractive design cues of the new A8, including the oversized – versus split – grille and distinctive headlamps with their under-wrapped LED running lights.